A love letter to libraries, essays on being human, and more
Everything I read in May
Hi there,
Every time I finish a book and try to think about writing a review, I always hesitate because, what do I even write? I’m not a great analyzer. Sometimes I barely understand what I read. One day I was browsing BookTube and I saw a comment saying “just experience it, not analyze it”. So here I am, telling you my experiences of the books I read in May.
What I Read in May 2024
Funny Story by Emily Henry
Emily Henry is growing on me. She is making us love small towns. She is making us want small town business owners as best friends. But most of all, her books are an ode to the book industry. Funny Story has the fake-dating and Labrador boyfriend trope. Daphne gets dumped on the eve of her wedding. Her ex-fiancé decided that he is in love with his girl best friend and he’s going to marry her instead. Because the house she has been living in with his ex-fiancée is solely under his name, Daphne has no choice but to move in with his ex fiancée’s new fiancée’s ex, Miles, who also got dumped. Their living situation leads to fake dating as each of them tries to make their exes jealous. With fake dating tropes, I think you all know how this ended up. They fell in love, of course.
The book was so fun to read despite being a little bit cheesy. I love how this book talks about the hardship of being an adult, of being on your own, and of making friends as an adult. But most of all, I love how this book is a love letter to public libraries.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
The Anthropocene Reviewed is a collection of essays where John Green reviews several peak human things like grocery stores, hotdogs, Mario Kart, Halley’s Comet, and plagues. Before rating them in a 5 star rating system, he provides a backstory of how he came across this particular thing and narrates his further encounters. The way I see it, it’s kind of like his memoir. I enjoy reading every bit of the essays. It’s funny. It’s inspiring. It’s very human. I can relate to John’s overthinking and anxiousness at just about anything. 100 percent will reread this again.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Humbert Humbert, our narrator, has his eyes only for little girls between the ages of 9 to 14, which he calls as nymphets. One day, she meets 12 year old Lolita. When Lolita’s mother dies, Humbert kidnaps her, starts a “relationship” with her, and they set off a year long cross country drive. At the start of their trip, Humbert claims that Lolita seduced him, rather than the other way around. But as you read further on, you might realize that maybe it’s not the case. Eventually, Lolita sorts of escapes Humbert but it’s not a happy ending.
This book is a diary of a madman. An incredible book that lets you get into the mind of a madman and messes with your head. So good but so twisted, hiding behind lines and lines of beautiful writing. There’s this scene where Humbert describes how Lolita plays tennis and its just so beautiful. But then I realized I am reading the thoughts of a grown man describing a 12 year old girl. I got pissed off with this book but then I’m really impressed with Nabokov.
The most important thing though going into this book is that it’s a satirical warning. As Thug Notes call it, Humbert Humbert is the king of unreliable narrators.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
In 1842, Lale Sokolov was imprisoned at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. Because he was fluent in several languages, the guards at the concentration camp designated him as the Tattooist whose primary task was to permanently mark his fellow prisoners. One day, he met Gita and it was love at first sight. From then on, he vowed to escape from the concentration camp and live a full life with Gita.
It’s a simple story with simple writing. I flew through it. What I liked the most about this book though is the ending - the part where Lale and Gita finally meets again. After that, the author provides a summary of Lale and Gita’s lives after the war. Despite the hardships they’ve endured during their early years, Lale and Gita lived a full (sometimes dangerous) life together. They eventually settled in Australia and had a son named Gary who wrote the afterword of this book. Gary’s chapter provides further testament to the love between Lale and Gita.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
“If you could go back [in time], who would you want to meet?”, says the first page of the book. Would you go back in time if given the chance?
Before the coffee gets cold is a collection of 4 connected stories of people who traveled back in time to meet a loved one. We get to read a heartbreaking story of an old couple, a tragic event between two sisters, a hopeful tale of lovers, and the transcendent bond between mother and daughter.
While I was reading this, I remember the feeling of reading Lonely Castle in the Mirror. Like Lonely Castle in the Mirror, the pace is slow for several chapters. It's pretty quite then the plot twist hits you like bam then its quite again.
Not much is said about the cafe where you can request to travel through time but I’m curious about its backstory. To those who have read the other books in this series, is the backstory mentioned? Because I don’t want to read more on the series if there’s no origin story.
What I Want to Read in June 2024
I just started The Beautiful and the Damned and it’s interesting so far. I am also on pause reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking but I’ll pick it up again after reading The Beautiful and the Damned. But most of all, I am excited to read Anna Karenina once my copy arrives. I’ve read that the secret to reading big books is to read it in chunks. And so, I am planning to read Anna Karenina in installments following its original serialized form. I found this post in reddit in case any one wants to piggyback this.
The Anthropocene Reviewed is on of my favourite non fic reads, purely because of how human it is. I've followed Hank and John Green since I was a young teen and while I think I've grown out of and from the YA fiction he's written, his non fiction work here and with Crash Course and on Vlogbrothers videos are magical.
I'm here for the vibes too. I had the exact same feeling reading Lolita in my teens. I'm planning to reread it next month and can't wait to experience it all over again. I wonder if I'll be so easily tricked by our narrator again. It's the book that started my dive into Nabokov's writing and interest in Russian storytelling in general!